Sunday, July 29, 2012

Summer Writing Journal - Entry #7

I have to say, I had the best writer's week! It was one of those weeks where everything was clicking and I got a lot done.

On Monday morning it was my intent to contact my editor. It had been a couple of weeks since we'd touched base about a new contract, but I hadn't seen anything official. Low and behold, in my inbox was an e-mail from her asking how I was coming along and if I'd signed the contract. Apparently cyber aliens were at work, since a couple e-mails to each other had disappeared into the netherworld. She sent another contract, which I signed and returned that same day. (It's all done on-line with electronic signatures.)

On Tuesday I had an e-mail confirming receipt of the contract from the Editor in Chief, and a link to the data base which had my tasks for this title. Basically I had to fill out the MIS (Manuscript Information Sheet) and cover art sheet. The first provides information about blurb, dedication, excerpt, and biography to the Press. The latter gives the art department a place to start when designing my cover. (For more on this check out this past week's blog at Heroines with Hearts.) So, I got those taken care of and submitted.

On Wednesday I worked on my WIP (Enough and then some to make my goal of writing the next chapter by my local RWA meeting.) and also received the first round of edits on An Unexpected Blessing from my editor. I was excited to see there weren't a lot of major issues, and so I completed those and sent them back.

On Thursday I got the second round of edits. These were really exciting to get, because the mss had been formatted to look like a 'real' book. I did a forward read through and then a backwards the next day.

On Friday I sent the second round back to my editor and gave her a requested list of tag words for the book: contemporary romance, single mom, ex-con, Thanksgiving, fall, family, samll town. She indicated she'd take another look at the mss and then send it to the copy edit department.

So things are really moving along with this story. The next big steps will be getting the cover (Always a nail biter when I see that e-mail in my in box, but I haven't been disappointed so far and this is my fifth title with TWRP.) and approving the galley.

Not only that, but I managed to complete my third and final bonus round for my local library's summer reading program. Golly I love summer!